November 7, 2022 Observer Newsletter: WWE Q3 financials, surprises on AEW Dynamite

WWE announced its third quarter financials on 11/2, with $304,640,000 in revenue and $41,620,000 in profits.

Revenues solidly beat Wall Street expectations of $280.1 million, but profits were slightly below the expectations of $43.3 million.

Last year in a similar quarter the revenues were $255,853,000 but profits were $43,486,000.

Revenues were up 19.1 percent from the third quarter of last year, while profits were down 4.3 percent. The revenue increase was largely $15.4 million in contractual increases for distribution for Raw, Smackdown, and NXT and another $14.6 million for production of other original programming (reality shows, A&E shows, etc), as well as the combination of the live gate, merchandise, and site fee paid by the city of Cardiff for the Clash of the Castle show, which as a live event, did numbers almost identical to each night of WrestleMania in Dallas.

It was the largest third quarter for revenue in company history, as would be expected, as with most of the revenue coming from guaranteed media contracts that have annual escalators written in, every quarter should be expected to set a new record.

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